BRADENTON, Fla. – LSU sophomore Caroline Nistrup parred the final four holes of her round on Sunday evening in the gathering dusk to finish her 54 holes and assure her spot in the field that will play another round on television on Monday for the individual stroke play championship.
Nistrup, first-team All-SEC each of the last two years, began to get weary midway through the final round on the difficult “The Concession” golf club, but parred home on the 163-yard par 3 sixth, the 547 par 5 seventh, the 322 yard par 4 eighth and the par 4 386 yard ninth, her final holes of the round after starting on No. 10.
She will try to match what happened in Bryan, Texas at the 2011 NCAAs when Austin Ernst as a freshman won the national title with a 6-under 66 on the final day.
The native of Denmark had two birdies on the 11th and 12th holes and at that point was back at even par for the first 39 holes of the event and tied for the lead. But a double bogey on the par 3 14th and a short approach point from the edge of the green that she was unable to convert led to a birdie and she turned at 37. Nistrup began to show the effects of long, tough grind with bogeys on the 10th, 12th and 14th holes of the round (No. 1, 3 & 5 on the course) before pars on the last four.
Nistrup had rounds of 72, 74 & 76 for a 6-over 222 for 54 holes. That is at this moment T11 in the standings led by Emma Talley at even par 216 (70-73-73). Five players in front of the LSU player still have work to do on their third rounds which was called at 8:21 p.m. for darkness in a day that included a 55-minute lightning delay.
“I’m really proud of Caroline,” said LSU Coach Karen Bahnsen. “She really dug deep but she got very tired. She kind of ran out of gas but she played very hard. That’s why I walked in with her the last few holes. I was just trying to keep her energy up. I’m glad she is playing in the afternoon on Monday. With all this heat and she was sick right before we left so she missed three days of practice. She didn’t have her best ball striking at the beginning of the week, but her short game was unbelievably great. On this course, you’ve got to have a good short game to get it up and down and I saw her get up and down a lot.”
The official start time for the final round is 10:50 a.m. ET and Nistrup’s exact place in the starting tee times will be determined as the third round finishes which will resume at 7:30 a.m. ET. A cut will be made to the top 15 teams after 54 holes and nine individuals not on those 15 teams. A total of 84 players will be playing for the individual title.
For the Lady Tigers team Sunday’s final round brought down the curtain on a successful season that saw LSU win three team titles and fur individual crowns during the course of the year. LSU posted a round of 25 over on the final day (313) and finished at +75 (309-316-313) 938, tied with Virginia for 20th place. As darkness stopped play, +63 927 was 15th on the board and 10 of the 15 teams have finished their rounds and posted a team score.
There is the possibility for one or two teams to sneak into the 15 once the round is completed.
“I told the girls I’m so proud of them. We are ranked sixth in the country,” said Bahnsen, who was taking her 12th team the NCAA Championship. “To see the growth of this team was tremendous. I’m so proud of them. Did we struggle this week? Absolutely. We didn’t have our best ball striking and it was a hard golf course. So the combination of that is what you get.
“This experience is going to help us move forward,” Bahnsen said.
Please check LSUsports.net and www.Facebook.com/LSUwomensgolf and @LSUwomensgolf on Twitter for the exact tee time for Nistrup on Monday. We will have updates on the round and coverage on Golf Channel begins at 4 p.m. ET with live coverage of the round to determine the national champion and the eight teams that will advance to Tuesday’s match play quarterfinals. That coverage will be preceded by Golf Central at 3 p.m. ET and afterwards at 7 p.m. ET.
Also tomorrow on LSUsports.net Coach Bahnsen will look back at Madelene Sagstrom‘s career, what advice she would give the LSU men’s coaches and much more in our reporter’s notebook.
Team Standings based on relationship to par at the end of play on Sunday:
1. Southern Cal +28 (holes 13-16, third round)
2. Duke +31 (holes 13-16, third round)
3. Arizona +41 905 F
4. Tennessee +43 (holes 13-16, third round)
5. Baylor +46 910 F
6. Purdue +47 911 F
7. Stanford +48 912 F
8. Washington +50 914 F
9. UC Davis +51 915 F
10 Northwestern +52 916 F
11. Arkansas +55 919 F
12. Texas Tech +56 920 F
13. South Carolina +59 (holes 13-18, third round)
14. Wake Forest +60 (holes 13-18, third round),
15. Alabama +63 927 F
16. UCLA +64 holes 13-18, third round)
17. UNLV +67 931 F
18. Texas A&M +69 933 F
19. Tulane +71 935 F
T20. LSU, Virginia +74 938 F
22. NC State +78 942 F
23. Campbell +86 950 F
24. California +89 953 F
Individual Top 10
1. Emma Talley, Alabama E 216 (70-73-73) F
2. Monica Vaugh, Arizona State, +1 (thru 17)
3. Annie Park, Southern California +2 (thru 13)
4. Leona Maguire, Duke, +3 (thru 13)
T5. Leilanie Kim, Idaho +4 220 (74-75-71) F; Gaby Lopez, Arkansas, +4 220 (70-76-740 F; Gurbani Singh, Duke, +4 (thru 13)
T8. Mariah Stackhouse, Stanford, +5 221 (68-78-75) F; Dylan Kim, Baylor +5, 221 (73-76-72); A . J. Newell, Tennessee, +5 (thru 13)
LSU Scores
(Placings are when play suspended late Sunday)
T11. Caroline Nistrup 72-74-76 – 222 +6
T54. Madelene Sagstrom 76-79-77 – 232 +16
T90. Elise Bradley 82-82-75 — 239 +23
T114. Nadine Dreher 80-81-85 – 246 +30
130. Carly Ray Goldstein 81-93-85 – 259 +43